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We’re Back! January 2012 Recap

We’re back! Yep, after almost a month of inactivity on here, and a stressful little period of exams, Soundhall is back in action. I’m sure you lot missed me while I was gone (not really), but hopefully you managed to keep up with the ridiculous amounts of good music that surfaced during the first month of 2012. I discovered some damn good new artists/tracks during January, and I’m gonna include a select few in this post – just incase you missed any of them recently. This marks the restart of what will hopefully be a successful and prosperous year for everyone.

There’s gonna be lots of lovely content coming your way shortly: Soundhall Sessions, interviews, exclusives… and of course some brand new tracks. Hopefully you’re all well and good, and surviving the snow… January recap? Let’s goooooo!

New Year’s Day saw legendary king of Grime Dizzee Rascal drop his hotly anticipated DirteeTV.com mixtape – and in spite of the technical difficulties faced by myself and a few others in actually getting the tape itself, it now sits proudly in my iTunes. I’ve selected this tune as my favourite – the Scrufizzer featuring “Guts ‘N’ Glory”. This tune’s been getting a lot of love recently from Radio 1 and 1Xtra, and it ain’t hard to see why. Both artists go IN on a top class instrumental, produced by Dizzee himself alongside Check out “Guts ‘N’ Glory” below and grab your free download of the mixtape HERE.

2. The Maccabees – Pelican

January also saw the release of the notoriously difficult third album from indie-rockers The Maccabees, entitled ‘Given To The Wild’. It received good reviews from all the typical sources (except this anomalously bad review from the Guardian), and here is the lead single taken from the LP, “Pelican”. It’s probably one of the best records of the year so far, and while that may sound clichéd… I genuinely believe that the adventurous sound of it is enough to earn it its rightful place in your record collection. Download it from Amazon HERE, or if iTunes is your preference, this is the place to go.

3. Ed Sheeran – Drunk (Official Video)

After announcing “Drunk” to be the fourth single from his multi-million selling debut album ‘+’, he released the official video for the single towards the end of January. Featuring a lot of pussy (cats) and Nina Nesbitt, the video is yet another brilliantly put together visual to accompany another top-drawer track from one of the best records of 2011. Take a look at it below, and pre-order the “Drunk” EP HERE (including remixes from Rudimental, Doctor P and Lazy Jay)

4. Tribes – Whenever

Camden rockers Tribes released their anticipated debut ‘Baby’ in January, to a fair amount of critical acclaim. The record acted as my first introduction to these guys and what came through the speakers blew me away. They managed to keep that slightly old-school feel but transport it right into the present day. Production, vocals, songwriting… all on point here and you should all go and grab the album HERE. Here’s the opener from the album, “Whenever”…

5. Skrillex – Rude Boy Bass (feat. Damien Marley) (Live in Las Vegas)

And rounding off the very general and non-specific recap of January’s events, here is a live preview of a brand new Skrillex track, taken live at Surrender in Las Vegas. It features Damien Marley on the vocals, and it sounds absolutely brilliant. Can’t wait to see what more we’re going to get from this guy in 2012.